Lesson Learned: First Dance

It all started well enough. We asked Steve to introduce us and made our big entrance into the ballroom that was set up for dancing.



And then the band began playing our song we'd practiced our specially choreographed dance routine to for the past year: "Stepping Out With My Baby" as sung by Doris Day.

AND THE SONG THEY PLAYED SOUNDED LIKE NOTHING WE HAD HEARD BEFORE!!!!




Lesson Learned: If you are going to practice a first dance to a particular song (and learn your dance cues to that) then use the recorded version for your first dance even if you have a live band. (Or else, tell the band and singer they need to sound EXACTLY like the recorded song. No exceptions!)




If you look closely in the above photo, you can see my Bride of Frankenstein look of horror as I try to pull off our dance with Eddie. As far as I was concerned, we might as well have been dancing to a completely random song pulled out of thin air.




We manage to do a good job faking that we had planned everything as it went along...




Our guests were none the wiser to this musical song and first dance snafu. They probably were just glad they weren't the ones in the spotlight on the dance floor!




Eddie dips me before our big finale ending.




And then forgets to heed our dance instructors instructions of holding onto me as he spins me at the end.

This did make for a great photo, though!

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

This is something we planned and were so happy we did! I have recommended this to every bride I know or meet: take a picture of EVERYONE at once on your wedding day!

We had the above photo snapped on the grand staircase at the Four Seasons, in-between our cocktail hour post ceremony and before dinner started. We asked everyone to join us at a set time (6:45 pm) in the itinerary of our wedding program. Our wedding day planners helped usher everyone from the bar, to the stairs. We got about three pictures of everyone taken, the above being the best of the three.

Lesson Learned: We made sure our photographer knew we wanted a group photo on the grand staircase and that it was going to be swapped out for the 5x5 request on the wedding mat. However, the way our guests assembled on the stairs, the final photos were difficult to crop down to fit the 5x5 layout necessary to finish off our wedding mat. Quite a bit of manipulation of the photo and paper border had to happen to make the final wedding mat look balanced and proportional. If you know you have a specific size you need a shot to work within, make sure you communicate this clearly to your photographer in advance.

Below, our wedding mat as it looked during our wedding...



Our request of our guests on our wedding day.

After we returned from our honeymoon, we replaced the picture of Eddie and I goofing around with the group photo on the stairs. We replaced our request for wishes, quotes and doodles with a copy of our wedding invitation.

I love having everything framed and displayed on our wall in our house. It makes a wonderful keepsake!